WESTMINSTER – City officials are looking at how future Tet parades will be run after this year's controversy surrounding the exclusion of a gay and lesbian group.

"The City Council remains unanimous in its position that it does not in any way support or condone any effort to discriminate against any particular group, especially the gay and lesbian group that wanted the opportunity to participate in the last parade," said City Attorney Richard Jones following a closed City Council session discussion on the issue Wednesday night.

The council was disappointed with the Little Saigon parade committee organizers' inability "to reach some sort of compromise or agreement," Jones said. The council also was disappointed that the city incurred attorney fees in the process, he said.

Jones indicated that city officials are weighing the rights of the Partnership of Viet Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Organizations with the rights of committee organizers, who won in Orange County Superior Court last month. A judge ruled against the gay group's bid to force organizers to include them in the Feb. 10 parade that marked the Asian Lunar New Year.

The council will receive recommendations and a report, including how much this controversy has cost Westminster, at the council's next meeting on March 27.

Meanwhile, in Santa Ana, Councilman David Benavides recently called for a review of city policies related to issuing public events permits to ensure such events are staged in a nondiscriminatory way.

"If we don't have a no-discrimination clause, the city attorney will come back with options on how we can ensure that a special event that takes place on city property is inclusive of all parties," Benavides said Thursday.

Benavides said he and fellow Councilman Roman Reyna were scheduled to participate in this year's parade but pulled out after the LGBT group was banned. "It was a discriminatory decision," Benavides said.

This year, the annual Westminster parade was put on by a committee headed by the Vietnamese American Federation of Southern California, which organized and picked up the tab for the event after city officials said they could not afford to pay for it from city coffers. The committee included the Vietnamese Interfaith Council in America, which called for a boycott of the Little Saigon Tet Parade in 2010, the first year the LGBT group participated.

The LGBT group won wide support for its bid to participate this year. Support came from politicians, various political and civil rights groups, the Union of Vietnamese Student Associations of Southern California, the Garden Grove Unified School District School Board and the Vietnamese American Chamber of Commerce of Orange County.

On Wednesday, representatives from both sides addressed the City Council to thank members for their support. Members of the LGBT group also urged the council to come back with clear guidelines that would avoid this year's standoff.

While the council did not discuss any particular ideas on Wednesday, Councilwoman Diana Carey, city staff and members of the LGBT group have been discussing different scenarios in recent weeks. The LGBT group had asked for a nondiscrimination clause in the city's ordinance related to special-events permits. City officials told the LGBT group that is unlikely to happen because it would not conform with legal precedent, according to Natalie Newton, a leader from the LGBT group who has been in talks with city officials.

Instead, one possibility talked about is creating a parade board that would draft people from various parts of the community, with the city as primary administrator, Newton said.